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Friday, December 2, 2016

Finally finding my paternal grandmother on a ship’s
passenger list got me back to research on that family. Searching again for historical records
brought me an overload of information. I
have lots of shaky leaves on Ancestry.com.

One thing that stands out is the connections between 4 families. Here’s a chart I made to help me visualize
the relationships.

The slanted blue lines indicate marriages. Vertical lines
show the individual and their fathers.
But there are two people that I have not yet connected to these families
even though they have the same surname.

I have no records for Veronica Raczynski born in 1852 who
married Jacob Frost.

A note on Frost: I was surprised to find the name in just
that form in records in Poland. The word
frost is mroz in polish, and there are plenty of people named Mroz. So how did “Frost” become established in Poland??

The Lawrence Lewandowski who married the Veronica Raczynski
born in 1879 may or may not be related to the other Lewandowskis on the
chart. There may be no common ancestor –
the name is not uncommon so it could simply be a coincidence.

What these families do have in common is that they all lived
within about ½ mile of each other, and they all attended the same church: St.
Adalbert in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

It has been a struggle to find information about my paternal
grandmother’s family. A scribbled name on the 1900 census had me on a wild
goose chase for quite a while.

My grandmother was Tekla (Thecla) Raczynska, born September
21, 1873 in Breckerfeld, Westphalia, Prussia.
Her parents, Lucas Raczynski and Lucia Juskowiak were married on 24 Nov
1867 at Cerekwica, Wielkopolskie, Prussian Poland. There were no civil records in
Germany/Prussia until 1874, so church sacramental records are my only sources.

The 1900 US Federal census shows Tekla with her husband,
Stanley Dachtera, and 3 children plus Lucia, listed as “mother” and Lucia’s
sons Frank and John. But – scribbled in for Lucy’s surname is: Matykewich
(sic).

So even though I know better than to make assumptions, I assumed
that Lucia had been widowed and remarried to Mr. Matykiewicz. I’m too embarrassed to tell how much time and
effort I wasted on that. Adding to my
confusion was that one of Tekla’s sisters-in-law, Stella Dachtera, married
Frank Raczynski. Because he proved
difficult to find in any records I had access to, I was not able to make a
connection. I was never able to find Tekla on any passenger list. After beating
on that brick wall for a while, I gave it a rest and moved on to something
else.

Fast forward to last Saturday.

Scanning photographs of my Dachtera ancestors got me back to
my research. I chased a couple of BSOs
(Bright Shiny Objects), but finally found a passenger list record at FamilySearch. Of course the surname was badly
misspelled but it was worth a look at the document. The transcriber did his/her best, but when I
saw the record, I knew it was Raczynski.

It made sense. There was my grandma with her mother, a
sister, and two brothers. YAY!!!

I did another search on Raczynski
looking at city directories – and there she was in the St. Paul city directory: Lucy Raczynski (widow of Lucas) and her son
John at the appropriate address. NO
mention of Matykewich!

But then I went back to the 1900
census and it didn’t make sense. The
ages and immigration years were different from the passenger list. How many women named Lucia Raczynska came to
the US with children named Tekla, Veronica, Frank (Franz) and John (Jan)???? It is likely that the census taker spoke with
Tekla who should have had accurate knowledge of birth dates – but she also may
have had enough of an accent to confuse the census taker. I’ll never know for
certain.

I created a small spreadsheet to try to clarify things, but that only made it clear that at least one data source had wrong information.

I have not reconciled the
differences, and perhaps never will, but here’s my current thinking.

While it would be difficult to
falsify the age of the infant Jan, the older children may have been presented
as younger than they were in order to keep the cost of passage as low as
possible.

Tekla was a very short woman. If she was tiny as a child, it could have
been possible to pass her off as a younger child to avoid paying an adult
fare. The same would hold for Veronica
and Franz.

So at present, I am assuming that
the Tekla Raczinska of the passenger list is my grandmother traveling with her
mother and siblings.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The goal of the Digital Public Library of America is to bring together the riches of America’s libraries, archives,
museums, and cultural heritage sites, and make them freely available to
students, teachers, researchers, and the general public. It is an ongoing
project, constantly adding more material.

The great value
of this project is that historical documents have been scattered far and wide over the
years. Images and documents from your home town in Ohio may show up in
libraries or museums anywhere from California to Virginia .

A search for St.
Paul, Minnesota, returned more than 78,000 items. Results showed documents and images located in several places
including Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia and in 14 different languages.. They are located in places I would never think to look.
Nor would I have thought to search for the very useful documents I
found. . DPLA allows you to search by subject, place or date.

I am seeking to
understand how my ancestors lived – what their everyday lives may have
been.

A study of
Minnesota incomes in the years 1938 – 1939 gives me clues about life during the
Great Depression.

Items include
everything from state statutes, to geology, to proceedings of the state
horticultural society, to maps, photos, history, memoirs, and promotional
materials designed to lure both settlers and tourists.

Drawing of Union Depot from The Grand Opening of the Northern Pacific Railroad - 1883

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Old-timers may talk about way back when bread was 5 cents a
loaf. I actually remember when

gasoline was $0.30 per gallon. Sounds pretty
cheap. BUT. I got my first part time job
in 1958 making minimum wage: $1.00/hour.
My mother spoke about working in the late 1930’s for $0.39/hour. Ahhh! The good old days!

When we look at our parents and grandparents in the 1930 US
Federal census records, we see the value of their homes, or what they paid
monthly in rent. The numbers look pretty small. Likewise, when we find
information on wages and salaries, those numbers look pretty small. So, I’ve
spent a little time comparing then and now.

Using the CPI (Consumer Price Index) Inflation Calculator
from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, I see that things may not have changed
that much. It is also important to realize that the world of finance was much
different in the past. It was more
difficult to get a mortgage or other kind of credit. Savings were often kept at home rather than
in banks. Only the well-to-do had checking accounts. By contrast, creditors, today are often more
than willing to extend credit to almost anyone who is breathing.

A home valued at $10,000.00 in 1930 is valued in 1916
dollars at just over $144.500.00.

In 1938 in St. Paul, Minnesota, the average annual income was
$600.00 for an individual and $1700.00 per household (multiple wage earners)[i]

19382016

$600 $10,200

$1708 $29,200

That still doesn’t look like much in today’s dollars, but
this was the Great Depression when very many were unemployed.

My 1958 $1.00 minimum wage would equal $8.35 today.

Certainly there are many more factors to consider when
trying to compare yesterday’s economics to today’s; but even this simplistic
comparison is interesting.

Sunday, October 30, 2016

I wish I could positively identify everyone in this photo.
The best I can do is a semi-educated guess – especially on the children..

Based on comparisons with other photos, I believe that my
grandmother, Stella Schipp Ganas, is on the left, and her sister, Mary Schipp
Fierstein, on the right.

My best guess is that the photo was taken in 1910 or 11. If
was 1911, Stella also had an infant not pictured. The sisters lived next door to one another at 263 and 264
Upper Levee in St. Paul, Minnesota. Their parents, Michael and Elizabeth Schipp
brought them from Poland to the US in 1887 and settled on the levee of the
Mississippi river.

The levee was where many immigrants from many countries put
down their American roots. The location
was less than ideal because of the frequent Spring floods as snowmelt raised
the level of the river. On the other
hand, St. Paul was a busy steamship port for both freight and passenger travel.
Grain milling, lumber and railroads provided job opportunities. St. Paul was a
good place to be.

This link will take you to a page with some pictures of
early St. Paul.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Elizabeth O’Neal’s October Blog Party asks about the
strangest thing we’ve found in our genealogy research. But my family research has found only
typical, everyday kind of folks. No witches
or wizards. Scandals have been minor.
Very unexciting. Poor me.

So the best I can do to contribute in the spirit of
strangeness and Halloween is the image below.
It is a Google Street View image as shown on Your Daily Dish.